Overclocking in Linux (bounty removed) [FAILED]

error

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Quote from: teukon on July 10, 2011, 03:09:38 AM

Does anyone know of a card manufacturer that does not believe in software limits? It might be nice to have a card which I can order to "fall on it's sword" so to speak. I'm tired of using safety scissors and tippy cups. I don't mind limits which force the card to shut down in the event of a surge or the like but at least let me change those limits in software where possible.

ASUS cards have very high default settings in their BIOSes, especially for 58xx series cards, which is why everybody flashes an ASUS BIOS onto their cards.

Rob P.

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Quote from: teukon on July 10, 2011, 03:09:38 AM

Quote from: BenD on July 09, 2011, 08:42:41 PM

[rant]Also, at least for my card, Catalyst 11.6 doesn't remove the limit so much as it raises it. I can't overvolt past 1.3V. Perhaps the VRMs on my card don't know how to do anything with more than 1.3V but, given everything we've seen up until now, I'd wager it's yet another software limit.

Does anyone know of a card manufacturer that does not believe in software limits? It might be nice to have a card which I can order to "fall on it's sword" so to speak. I'm tired of using safety scissors and tippy cups. I don't mind limits which force the card to shut down in the event of a surge or the like but at least let me change those limits in software where possible.[/rant]

If you're getting overvoltage to work without flashing the BIOS, that's great. However, I would strongly suggest that if you need to overvolt the cards you should just go through the rather straightforward exercise of flashing the BIOS.

teukon

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Quote from: BenD on July 09, 2011, 08:42:41 PM

Quote from: shivansps on July 09, 2011, 01:04:18 AM

Cant be donde whiout increasing voltage, voltages cant be increased beyond bios limit in Linux, AMDOverdriveCtrl only allow voltages changes in bios limit (so nothing, as the limit is the stock voltage).

I just noticed that voltage adjustment with Sapphire 5850 Xtreme works. However, power consumption rises about 80 W/h, even with slightest changes, e.g. 1,088 V -> 1,094 V. Two of these cards are in my PC. Temperatures rise over 80 °C, too.
I use Catalyst 11.6 and SDK 2.4 with phoenix.

I could be wrong but I believe that the VRMs on the 5850s only handle voltage in increments of 12.5mV so the next level above 1.088 (really 1.0875V) would be 1.1V. I say this because 1.094V is pretty much half-way between 1.0875V and 1.1V so I'm wondering if you know more than I do (this information is hard to find). It's possible that the driver is rounding 1.094V up to 1.1V.

[rant]Also, at least for my card, Catalyst 11.6 doesn't remove the limit so much as it raises it. I can't overvolt past 1.3V. Perhaps the VRMs on my card don't know how to do anything with more than 1.3V but, given everything we've seen up until now, I'd wager it's yet another software limit.

Does anyone know of a card manufacturer that does not believe in software limits? It might be nice to have a card which I can order to "fall on it's sword" so to speak. I'm tired of using safety scissors and tippy cups. I don't mind limits which force the card to shut down in the event of a surge or the like but at least let me change those limits in software where possible.[/rant]

BenD

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Quote from: shivansps on July 09, 2011, 01:04:18 AM

Cant be donde whiout increasing voltage, voltages cant be increased beyond bios limit in Linux, AMDOverdriveCtrl only allow voltages changes in bios limit (so nothing, as the limit is the stock voltage).

I just noticed that voltage adjustment with Sapphire 5850 Xtreme works. However, power consumption rises about 80 W/h, even with slightest changes, e.g. 1,088 V -> 1,094 V. Two of these cards are in my PC. Temperatures rise over 80 °C, too.
I use Catalyst 11.6 and SDK 2.4 with phoenix.

Rob P.

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Activity: 84

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Quote from: teukon on July 09, 2011, 03:12:47 AM

Ok guys. Thanks for trying.

It's not often I come up against a computer configuration problem which is this difficult but, then again, Catalyst is the first piece of closed source software I've installed on my computer (other than Folding@Home) in years. I'll stop the bounty and wait patiently for Catalyst 11.7, hoping that it will be about as fast as Catalyst 11.4 and that it can also be used for overclocking past BIOS limits like Catalyst 11.6. I'm probably expecting too much but there's always hope.

I've already tried the open source radeon drivers but no joy. I've also tried pretty much every xorg.conf driver option but none improve Catalyst 11.6s speed. If 11.7 is no good then I may try all of the previous Catalyst drivers.

Just an FYI. The loss of hashrate you get from running 11.6 instead of 11.4 is more than made up by the hashrate you'll gain running 11.6 and being able to overclock the GPU (and the cooling you'll get from underclocking the RAM).

Just saying.

Overclocking my 5830s gain me over 40 Mhash/sec, so a loss of 10Mhash/sec would still net me +30 Mhash/sec. You're crazy not to be OCing.

teukon

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Ok guys. Thanks for trying.

It's not often I come up against a computer configuration problem which is this difficult but, then again, Catalyst is the first piece of closed source software I've installed on my computer (other than Folding@Home) in years. I'll stop the bounty and wait patiently for Catalyst 11.7, hoping that it will be about as fast as Catalyst 11.4 and that it can also be used for overclocking past BIOS limits like Catalyst 11.6. I'm probably expecting too much but there's always hope.

I've already tried the open source radeon drivers but no joy. I've also tried pretty much every xorg.conf driver option but none improve Catalyst 11.6s speed. If 11.7 is no good then I may try all of the previous Catalyst drivers.

shivansps

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Quote from: teukon on July 08, 2011, 03:38:58 AM

I have a Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme. The BIOS limit on the core clock is 900 MHz.

With Catalyst 11.6 I can easily increase the clock frequency beyond 900 MHz but in Catalyst 11.4 I'm not able to. (Catalyst 11.4 is quite a bit faster than Catalyst 11.6 for me).

To the person that can help me to clock my card significantly beyond 900 MHz while using Catalyst 11.4 without resorting to WINE/Windows/DOS/BIOS-flash I offer 1 BTC. I'll settle for a new limit of 1150 MHz or more.

Cant be donde whiout increasing voltage, voltages cant be increased beyond bios limit in Linux, AMDOverdriveCtrl only allow voltages changes in bios limit (so nothing, as the limit is the stock voltage).

You will need to do bios flashing, if you wish to, ive already uploaded instructions and modded bios for the 5850 xtreme in hardware.

ananas5

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Code:

DISPLAY=:0 aticonfig --od-enable --adapter=all
DISPLAY=:0 aticonfig --od-setclocks=1000,300 --adapter=x

1000=Core clock
300=Mem clock
x=adapter number

Type that in Terminal, should work.

Don't use AMDOverclockCtrl at the same time, it messes up the clocks sometimes.

edit: Oh, you are using 11.4, well probably won't work then. Use 11.6 instead or wait for 11.7.

Zagitta

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Presale is live!

try running this profile through AMDOverdriveCtrl:

Code:

And then: aticonfig -odsc 900,300

At least that works for me but i'm also using a reference Asus 5850

Rob P.

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Activity: 84

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Quote from: teukon on July 08, 2011, 03:38:58 AM

I have a Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme. The BIOS limit on the core clock is 900 MHz.

With Catalyst 11.6 I can easily increase the clock frequency beyond 900 MHz but in Catalyst 11.4 I'm not able to. (Catalyst 11.4 is quite a bit faster than Catalyst 11.6 for me).

To the person that can help me to clock my card significantly beyond 900 MHz while using Catalyst 11.4 without resorting to WINE/Windows/DOS/BIOS-flash I offer 1 BTC. I'll settle for a new limit of 1150 MHz or more.

Can't be done. Moving on.

teukon

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Quote from: error on July 08, 2011, 04:16:02 AM

Quote from: teukon on July 08, 2011, 04:13:28 AM

Quote from: lebuen on July 08, 2011, 04:05:16 AM

oh, ok, must admit, i probably had the bios flashed before... forgot about that. sorry for my hasty reaction Undecided

No worries. Anyone else?

Perhaps a way to trick the system into using using Catalyst 11.6 to set the clocks and then Catalyst 11.4 to drive the card while mining? Or perhaps trying to interact with the card on the same level that the driver does?

But you never explained what was wrong with Catalyst 11.6?

Catalyst 11.6 works, it's just 8-10 MH/s slower than Catalyst 11.4 for me. That's why I'm interested in running Catalyst 11.4. If you can get the extra performance out of Catalyst 11.6 then you are good for the 1 BTC bounty. If another version of Catalyst provides the same performance as 11.4 and is able to overclock past the BIOS limit then that would win too.

At, say 1000MHz, my 5850 will do 415.5 MH/s (+/- 0.1 MH/s) with Catalyst 11.6.

At, 900 MHz I get 365.1 MH/s from Catalyst 11.6 but 373.7 MH/s from Catalyst 11.4

If I can get around 425 MH/s at 1GHz by doing something to Catalyst 11.6 then please let me know.

error

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Quote from: teukon on July 08, 2011, 04:13:28 AM

Quote from: lebuen on July 08, 2011, 04:05:16 AM

oh, ok, must admit, i probably had the bios flashed before... forgot about that. sorry for my hasty reaction Undecided

No worries. Anyone else?

Perhaps a way to trick the system into using using Catalyst 11.6 to set the clocks and then Catalyst 11.4 to drive the card while mining? Or perhaps trying to interact with the card on the same level that the driver does?

But you never explained what was wrong with Catalyst 11.6?

teukon

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Quote from: lebuen on July 08, 2011, 04:05:16 AM

oh, ok, must admit, i probably had the bios flashed before... forgot about that. sorry for my hasty reaction Undecided

No worries. Anyone else?

Perhaps a way to trick the system into using using Catalyst 11.6 to set the clocks and then Catalyst 11.4 to drive the card while mining? Or perhaps trying to interact with the card on the same level that the driver does?

lebuen

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oh, ok, must admit, i probably had the bios flashed before... forgot about that. sorry for my hasty reaction Undecided

teukon

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Quote from: lebuen on July 08, 2011, 03:41:17 AM

You can do it using AMDOverdriveCtrl (it works with 11.4, I used it). Instructions follow (just to save the bounty Grin

)

1. Install AMDOverdriveCtrl (http://sourceforge.net/projects/amdovdrvctrl/)
2. Use the GUI

Alternatively you can also use it only on the commandline, you can find the config files in your home-directory/.AMDOverdriveCtrl. Just make a new file named Yourprofile.ovdr, you can use this as a template (from my 5850):

Code:

This will overclock your card to 930 MHz (just an example, use any values you want). Rest should be self-explanatory, just pay attention to the format of the numbers.

Then, you can use AMDOverdriveCtrl using the following commands:

cd ${HOMEDIR}/.AMDOverdriveCtrl
DISPLAY=:0 AMDOverdriveCtrl --adapter-index=0 -b Yourprofile.ovdr

Important: you have to cd to this directory before you call AMDOverdriveCtrl. Adapter index is 0 for GPU1, 3 for GPU2, 6 for GPU3 and so on.

Unfortunately this does not work for me.

I have AMDOverdriveCtrl and have tried this profile (and a few of my own) to no effect. When I run

Code:

AMDOverdriveCtrl -b Miner0.ovdr -i 0

I get

Code:

INF: Nr. of Adapters: 6
INF: Adapter index: 0, active, ID:25891136, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index: 1, inact., ID:25891136, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index: 2, inact., ID:25891136, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index: 3, active, ID:26462272, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index: 4, inact., ID:26462272, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index: 5, inact., ID:26462272, ATI Radeon HD 5800 Series
INF: Adapter index 0 choosen.
INF: Nr. of Performance Levels: 3
INF: Card's default Perf Level 0: GPU 157MHz Memory 300MHz Voltage 0.95V
INF: Card's default Perf Level 1: GPU 550MHz Memory 900MHz Voltage 1.038V
INF: Card's default Perf Level 2: GPU 725MHz Memory 1000MHz Voltage 1.088V
WRN: failed to read current fan speed.
INF: Nr. of Displays to check 4
WRN: color temperature setting not supported.
ACT: SetOverdriveValues: Level 0: 157MHz, 300MHz, MHz, 0.95V
ACT: SetOverdriveValues: Level 1: 550MHz, 300MHz, MHz, 1.038V
ACT: SetOverdriveValues: Level 2: 930MHz, 300MHz, MHz, 1.088V

And the program stalls here.

With 900MHz or less the program applies the changes without stalling. With Catalyst 11.6 the program applies the changes without stalling. With Catalyst 11.4 I can underclock the RAM but cannot find a way of overclocking the core.

Is there something I'm missing?

lebuen

full member

Activity: 126

Merit: 100

You can do it using AMDOverdriveCtrl (it works with 11.4, I used it). Instructions follow (just to save the bounty Grin

)

1. Install AMDOverdriveCtrl (http://sourceforge.net/projects/amdovdrvctrl/)
2. Use the GUI

Alternatively you can also use it only on the commandline, you can find the config files in your home-directory/.AMDOverdriveCtrl. Just make a new file named Yourprofile.ovdr, you can use this as a template (from my 5850):

Code:

This will overclock your card to 930 MHz (just an example, use any values you want). Rest should be self-explanatory, just pay attention to the format of the numbers.

Then, you can use AMDOverdriveCtrl using the following commands:

cd ${HOMEDIR}/.AMDOverdriveCtrl
DISPLAY=:0 AMDOverdriveCtrl --adapter-index=0 -b Yourprofile.ovdr

Important: you have to cd to this directory before you call AMDOverdriveCtrl. Adapter index is 0 for GPU1, 3 for GPU2, 6 for GPU3 and so on.

If that works (worked for me), bounty goes to 18CA6BGnATnZYpN4aoH9FZVZvjKHyLDFRs

error

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Activity: 588

Merit: 500

How can I take your offer seriously? You have discounted every possible option.

teukon

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Activity: 1246

Merit: 1011

I have a Sapphire HD5850 Xtreme. The BIOS limit on the core clock is 900 MHz.

With Catalyst 11.6 I can easily increase the clock frequency beyond 900 MHz but in Catalyst 11.4 I'm not able to. (Catalyst 11.4 is quite a bit faster than Catalyst 11.6 for me).

To the person that can help me to clock my card significantly beyond 900 MHz while using Catalyst 11.4 without resorting to WINE/Windows/DOS/BIOS-flash I offer 1 BTC. I'll settle for a new limit of 1150 MHz or more.

Topic: Overclocking in Linux (bounty removed) [FAILED] (Read 2854 times)